


Singularity

by Corvid_Knight, NKMLN



Series: Demonstuck [15]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Demonstuck, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Telepathy, dave being mentally fucked over again, my tumblr is knight-of-heart-and-art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 09:14:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14398950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight, https://archiveofourown.org/users/NKMLN/pseuds/NKMLN
Summary: this is a side chapter for Demon Eyes that takes place somewhere in the two years between chapters 19 and 20! It's a collaboration betweenninja-kitty-more-like-no(who does not have an ao3 account at the moment so that link goes to her tumblr) and me!





	Singularity

You get back early, kind of. If it wasn't fucking midwinter it'd still be daylight outside, but yeah. No. It's twilight by the time you get back from this hunt, full dark when you come out of the bathroom with your hair still wet and _still_ stained reddish-brown in places. 

That thing's blood doesn't come off easy, apparently. You can feel Dirk's annoyance, somewhere close, that he's going to have both hands stained almost black for a while, and Hal's mild amusement at the same thing. The shikigami's the only one who came out without blood on him, of course he is—if you'd done your fucking job right you'd be the only one to get that shit on you—

"Hey. Dave." Karkat touches your shoulder as you shove the bathroom door half-closed, and you jump a fucking mile. _Scale of one to ten, how fucked up are you right now?_

"Uh." Shit, it might be kind of a high number today, but you instinctively halve your gut response. "Um, four? Four?" 

From the look he gives you as he wraps an arm around your shoulders and starts pulling you towards your and his room, he's pretty fucking aware of the kind of math you're doing here. "Four?" 

"Four." It comes out a little more decisive this time, as you lean against him. The number's already going down. Maybe only in increments of percents right now, but fuck. You'll take what you can get. "Can—can we..." 

You think the rest of it at him, one jumbled thought that's more a feeling than a word. _Close/safe/flip/stay,_ all at the same time. There's no real difference between any of those words, any of those _concepts_ , for you. Not with him. Not anymore. 

The demon smiles and glances over at you, his arm tightening around your shoulders just the slightest bit as he gets the door to your room open. "You sure?" 

"Mhm. 'course I am, man..." 

Maybe it's stupid, but you go through this with him every time, every hunt. You ask for this, he asks if you're sure—and once or twice you haven't been even if you said you were, and he _knew,_ wouldn't let you slip out of your body and into his. The other times, though...

Every time shit goes down, there's something that sobs and rails in the back of your mind—a part of you that'll obsessively go over and over the memory of the _blood,_ how fucking _much_ there was, how _red_ your shirt was, your hands, how it doesn't wash off all the way, _never_ , there's always traces, always—and you've never known how to silence it. 

Karkat knows.

He pulls you into the room and lets go of you to shut the door. When he turns around, you're already on the bed, trying really fucking hard not to stare at him, not to let him see that you're desperate enough to be almost shaking. 

He sees anyway. You know he does, and (somehow) you're okay with that. 

The demon settles himself on the bed next to you, leaning up against the headboard and not touching yet, twisting towards you a bit and spreading his arms. _Come on, then. Come here. Come_ here.

Maybe the first time, you hesitated here. Now, there's not even a pause—you lean into him, head against his collarbone, curling your knees up so your whole form presses against him. Karkat threads one hand into your hair, the other arm wrapping around you to support you as you take a breath and let yourself go limp against him, finding that key deep in your mind and twisting it, falling for some infinitesimal fraction of a heartbeat. 

Flipping. 

When it stops, you're looking down at yourself, seeing your own face lose the scared, pained cast you carry after every fucking job. And you're surrounded by such fondness, such fierce affection, so much of Karkat's _love_ , that everything that isn't the two of you goes hazy and fades away. 

_'kat._

He's purring. You can feel it in your own chest, his chest but yours for this moment—fuck, that feels softer than when you simply lie with your head against his chest to listen, even better. 

(You can feel him thinking almost the same thing—that hearing himself purr through your body's ears, feeling it against his/your body, is fucking _amazing._ ) 

He closes his eyes, cutting off your view of yourself—of anything—and you instinctively close yours as well.

_You okay?_ he asks, and you feel your own barely-there laugh through your contact with him. 

_Yeah, man. Yeah._ Of course you're okay—it's him, it's _him_ , and this is the closest you'll ever come to a singularity. _Love you, Karkat._

For a second, the affection you're surrounded with is shot through with threads of his amusement—you're so dependent on words; even when he's as surrounded with your love as you are with his you _still_ need to make sure he knows, and he's always a little amused by that—and then he thinks the words back to you. _Love you, Dave._

You're not thinking about the hunt. 

You're not thinking about the ( _godawful amounts of_ ) blood from when you cut that creature open. You're not thinking about anything other than him, this moment. 

It's quiet. Peaceful. Good. 

_Tell me when to flip back,_ you think. 

He breathes deep ( _you breathe deep_ ), and pulls your prone body closer to him, as close as he can get you. There's no words, but you can _feel_ him thinking at you—he won't let go. 

He's got you. You're safe. 

You smile, and he echoes that, and for this moment everything is quiet and _perfect._

And he echoes that thought back, too. 

_Perfect._


End file.
